He donated his 30,000 baseball cards to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Only a small part of Burdick’s collection is put on display. [2015's exhibit link]
"In 1947, Jefferson R. Burdick began to donate his entire collection of approximately thirty thousand baseball cards in large batches, along with another 270,000 trade and postcards, to the Museum. Burdick organized the cards into albums—incorporating the sports cards into other contemporary advertising material—over the course of fifteen years in the Print Study Room at the Museum. In compiling the albums he adhered to a strict cataloging system, which he published as theAmerican Card Catalogue in 1939. Burdick's method has become the standard system used by all collectors of early American printed ephemera.
The Burdick collection of baseball cards is the most comprehensive collection outside of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and illustrates the history of the game from the dead-ball era at the turn of the nineteenth century to the golden age and modern era of the sport. The selection of cards on display represents a broad overview of baseball cards produced as advertisements by tobacco, candy, and gum companies between 1889 and 1959"
- Mark Lamster's article about Burdick: The Collector
- Here's another must-read article by George Vrechek: The Greatest Collection That You Will Never See
- Then you can read George's detailed diary of actually getting into the private research viewing room and seeing/touching some of Burdick's baseball card collection albums. Link: BURDICK REVISITED
- Check out OLDBASEBALL.com
- Read the NY Times article about the Burdick collection
- See Breaking the Color Barrier in Major League Baseball -- Met exhibit: January 18–June 17, 2012
- Read much more -- More
- "Legends of the Dead Ball Era" -- NY Times article - link
